odo1242 3 days ago

People think R&D expenditure shouldn't be amoritized because it hurts startups.

For example, if you're a first-year startup and you make a software product with $1 million in revenue but pay $900,000 in software dev salaries, and the tax rate is 25%, without amoritization you pay (1,000,000-900,000)*0.25 = $25,000 in tax and make a profit, but with 5-year amoritization you pay (1,000,000-900,000/5)*0.25 = $205,000 in tax and take a loss.

But since established companies aren't affected as much, they are advantaged by the amoritization rule.

1
logifail 2 days ago

> People think R&D expenditure shouldn't be amoritized because it hurts startups

(Not trying to be deliberately obtuse but) which people "think this"? Startups and their investors, obviously, but who else?

If world+dog has to amortize their R&D expenditure, why should startups be exempt, essentially "because software dev salaries"?

> But since established companies aren't affected as much, they are advantaged by the amoritization rule.

Q: Why should startups get a specific tax carve-out for "R&D"?